One problem with aftermarket laser printer toner cartridges sometimes occurs as the aftermarket cartridge is installed in the printer and made ready for printing by removing a strip seal that retains toner inside of the cartridge hopper during transportation from the manufacturer to the end user. The general problem is that the seal can jam and when it is jammed, it will not pull out of the cartridge. This seal, also known as the hopper gasket pull seal, has as its only purpose the sealing of the opening of the hopper tank for transporting to the end user without leaking toner into the shipping container. Once the seal is pulled out of the cartridge by the end user, the opening at the top of the toner hopper tank is uncovered, thus allowing toner to be transferred to the other components of the laser cartridge for printing.
An original equipment manufactured (OEM) cartridge will typically not have a jamming problem because the pull seal is directly adhered to the toner hopper tank in the OEM manufacturing process. However, in rebuilding or remanufacturing aftermarket toner cartridges, the hopper tank is split into two sections, and then, during the remanufacturing process, the two sections are pressed and held together, typically by welding, or by a manual means, such as by clips, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,577,830 which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. During the remanufacturing process the laser printer toner cartridge is cleaned and re-assembled, with new components and new toner charged into the hopper tank. As is known, the resulting remanufactured cartridge can have slight differences in dimensions as related to OEM specifications, and differences exist in aftermarket toner cartridge hopper tank gasket seals and pull strips. To account for some of these differences and in order to maintain a good seal at the toner cartridge hopper opening, a remanufactured toner cartridge may incorporate a gasket seal, and the hopper tank gasket seal may be made from foam, so that a good seal of the hopper can be formed by the gasket and the pull strip. Once the remanufactured cartridge has been sent to an end user and is installed in the printer, ready for use, the pull strip is pulled off of the gasket and out of the toner cartridge to activate the laser toner cartridge for printing. This pulling of the pull seal is when there is a chance that the hopper pull strip will not always release from the hopper tank gasket seal as planned.
It has been discovered that in many instances the reason the hopper tank gasket pull strip does not release from the gasket and thus causes jamming, is due to mechanical reasons. One of the most common reasons for jamming is that the foam gasket is pulled up along with the pull strip and then the gasket and/or the pull strip jam the pull strip exit slot as the pull strip is being pulled out of the laser printer toner cartridge. Another common reason is that “post test toner” that remains after testing the re-manufactured cartridge upon assembly in the factory, curls up with the pull strip as the pull strip is moving along toward the exit slot, and forms a roll or plug of toner that causes jamming at the pull seal exit slot. As this excess toner curls up it forms into a log shape on the top of the pull strip, and it will then lock up along with the pull seal at the beginning of the pull seal exit slot, thus preventing any further pulling of the pull strip and causing the cartridge to be unusable. This phenomenon is known in the industry as the “cigar effect”, due to the fact that the excess toner literally looks like a tiny cigar when is it is curled up and is at the pull seal exit slot. The cigar effect causes jamming due to a lack of clearance through the exit slot. In this situation the diameter of the combined cigar shaped toner plug and the surrounding pull seal strip is greater than the width of the pull seal exit slot. As a result the pull seal strip cannot be pulled through the slot and removed from the cartridge.
In view of this, a need exists for a device and/or method to reduce the jamming of the pull strip.